Hermosa: I think I can tell that I’ve been here before . . .
Hermosa (written note): Note to self: / Security risk / Stay inside / Net is disabled on purpose, don’t hack it / Pascentia has details
Pascentia: Oh? Good! Is it starting to look familiar?
Hermosa: Not to the eyes, but —
It feels — it’s easier to walk around and I don’t — I know how to not bump into things.
Have you stayed over before, Pas? Is there a place for you?
Pascentia: Yes — I even keep a few things in the guest room.
It’s right in —
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Wow, that was fast.
… Wait, the tags tell me that’s not who I thought it was.
The tags… yikes.
WHY IS MARULA THERE
Also I thought she was in jail for some reason? But looking back it was a “allowable” killing I guess? Still WHY IS SHE THERE!?!?!?!
Simple, they can’t trust her to not go over the line if they set her on a monster. However, putting her on a guard post that emphasizes “NO MURDER” to see how well she’ll follow their orders? Not a terrible decision.
Though I think Pas will immediately try to take the matter to Del the second she realizes what’s going on about Marula being a sociopath.
I have three issues with that:
1: Hermosa’s fugue states make him really vulnerable. We already know she’s pretty manipulative. She wouldn’t physically harm him but we have no guarantee Marula wouldn’t use him somehow. He was very easily convinced to let Kudzu back in his head, for instance. While he’s likely had this idea before, it’s not impossible Marula could find some other pressure point to influence him.
2. Why would no one let Pascentia know that Marula would be there? Even if Marula wasn’t the way she is, they should have let them know someone was assigned there.
3. Why wouldn’t you just assign Pascentia? She knows Hermosa and his mental states well and is fully capable of handling any situations that come up, including if Dex returns.
1: To be fair, the SOoMH might be counting on her trying to manipulate in some way.
2, 3: Pascentia isn’t in their chain of command. She’s Chalice, and even with her classification level being upgraded, they can probably only trust her with this situation in certain ways. There’s a reason compartmentalization exists. Also, neither one of them really has any say in this situation right now.
I love that he’s leaving a note for his future amnesiac self in case he tries to leave again.
But those character tags are filling me with CONCERN.
C O N C E R N
Turns out, a lot of people can recognize their own handwriting. So people with issues like Hermosas can sometimes leave themselves notes like this.
It doesn’t always work, as sometimes people in fugue states decide to secondguess whether their past self who left the note was under coercion or otherwise not mentally well. Sigh.
Disclaimer: that not always working is based on the one individual I’ve personally cared for in such a state. I’ve no idea how common that is, but it was completely expected to me, since I knew him and it was consistent with his normal behavior. Fortunately, he was not in my care for long, nor going in and out of fugues state for long. (He got there due to an illness, and it was only a few days. But most of the time, he had other family members taking primary care of him, since I was the youngest child, and he was not an adult yet, so I was even less so.)
If you have mental illness, you know you can’t trust yourself. Now, who was in better state – you now or you who wrote the note? No way to tell.
Oh my, oh no, oh dear, oh bother…
This sure is a cliffhanger, but I’m happy that it wasn’t posted on a Friday XD
True, but instead the cliffhanger end-of-storyline will be posted tomorrow, and who knows how long it will take until we pick up this thread. Erin has been alternating between the current time frame and the Quarantine with a Vampire flashback, Training Wreck ended with a Rowan + Archie hook (squee!), and we haven’t heard from the titular main characters at all this storyline. Surely we’re due to check in with them.
There are many loose ends that may keep us hanging here for a while.
Good eye — next arc is more Quarantine, after that is a Leif/Thorn-centric arc, then more Quarantine, then prrrrobably the Rowan + Archie meeting.
And I think I won’t have any more Quarantine after that (art just keeps imitating life here, huh?), so it’ll become a question of “how many more strips can I fit in Volume 5, and what are the most important things to wrap up before it ends?”
I have so many loose threads right now D: Seriously wishing I could draw faster, there are so many stories to tell, and not enough days in the week to cover them as fast as I want to.
(Also: seriously happy all over again with the way I decided to do Sunday strips. Poor Leif and Thorn wouldn’t have appeared at all, for months, if I didn’t leave open a way to check in with them…)
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